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June 8, 2020

NEW YORK’S REOPENING OF THE ECONOMY AND RECOVERY JUNE 9, 2020 - 2:00-3:00PM EST As the curve continues to flatten and our state looks toward reopening, it is critical that New York moves forward with a regional approach that reflects the differences in population density and COVID-19 infection rates.When it comes to reopening the economy, abundant testing, contact tracing, and following the advice of experts will be essential. When we do slowly reopen, how will the economy start to recover overall?

How will we help our unemployed and businesses on hold, get back on their feet? What are the resources that will be available to make this transition and what realities should we be prepared for?

PA N E LI STS I N C LU D E

KATHY HOCHUL Lieutenant Governor

REP. THOMAS SUOZZI White House Task Force to Reopen

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June 8, 2020

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EDITOR’S NOTE

JON LENTZ Editor-in-chief

ON MONDAY, MAY 25, two encounters that illustrate America’s racial divisions were caught on video. That morning, a black man was bird-watching in Central Park when he asked a white woman to leash her dog. The woman, Amy Cooper, refused and instead called the police, claiming that an African American man was threatening her. The man, Christian Cooper, who is not related, taped the interaction, which went viral online. Amy Cooper was castigated on social media, lost her job and apologized.

“Any of us can make – not necessarily a racist mistake, but a mistake,” Christian Cooper told The New York Times afterward. “I’m not excusing the racism. But I don’t know if her life needed to be torn apart.”

That evening, Minneapolis police officers responded to a complaint about a suspect using a fake $20 bill. They apprehended a man, George Floyd, and an officer, Derek Chauvin, pinned him down with a knee on his neck. “I can’t breathe,” Floyd cried out repeatedly. Yet Chauvin kept his knee on Floyd’s neck for more than eight minutes – even after Floyd appeared to pass out. At a hospital nearby, Floyd was pronounced dead. The officers were fired and charged with crimes. But as the wave of protests and calls for change show, any apology is not enough.

CONTENTS

BILL DE BLASIO … 8 This could be the end for the mayor.

POLICE UNIONS … 12 Who’s really giving the marching orders?

FIRSTHAND ACCOUNT … 18

Two black legislators on getting pepper sprayed

LEADERSHIP … 22

CELESTE SLOMAN; LEV RADIN/SHUTTERSTOCK

Who’s organizing the protests?

ANSWERS … 24

How state lawmakers want to respond

WINNERS & LOSERS … 30

Who was up and who was down last week

CityAndStateNY.com

PROTESTS ROCK NEW YORK UNDER CURFEW Protests in New York City and across the state continued throughout the week following the policeinvolved death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Gov. Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced early in the week an 11 p.m. curfew for the city after other parts of the state had instituted their own curfews as well. Within a day, de Blasio moved that curfew up to 8 p.m. At the beginning of the week,

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the city saw extensive property damage and looting, although it largely subsided after the curfew was put in place. However, violent confrontations between police and demonstrators continued.

Countless videos showed officers using force, including pepper spray and batons, against what appeared to be peaceful protesters. Hundreds were arrested, many of whom were held for over 24 hours in crowded jail cells as they awaited booking. Videos show police went after journalists displaying press passes – who were exempt

from the curfew – other essential workers, and even medics and legal observers.

In one protest in the Bronx, police cracked down on protesters at exactly 8 p.m. in what one reporter on the scene called “a trap.” NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea said that the protest was advertised as violent and that the police responded accordingly.

Shea also pleaded for the safety of officers, several of whom he said had suffered injuries. Those included an officer who was stabbed in the neck and two others who were shot in their hands during an attack in the Bronx, although it did not appear the attack was directly related to protesters.

Shea said that he has not heard about any protester getting seriously injured, but that there would “probably be a couple of officers suspended” for misconduct.

PAINFUL ABSENCE As protests against police brutality continue, Time magazine spotlighted some of those responsible for building up the movement: the mothers of black Americans killed by police. George Floyd’s mother died before her son, but Floyd spoke to her as he died. Here in New York, Eric Garner’s mother Gwen Carr has helped lead a movement for police reform – not just after her own son’s death, but Floyd’s, too.

PRAISE FOR POLICE FROM THE TOP

“Right now we have the wrong president, the wrong governor, and the wrong mayor.”

– New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, criticizing the city, state and federal government response to protests and police brutality, via NY1

“If I didn’t have a primary, I wouldn’t care.”

– Rep. Eliot Engel, caught on a hot mic, while asking to speak at an event in the Bronx following a night of looting, via NY1

Throughout the week, both de Blasio and Cuomo largely praised the police response to the protests.

De Blasio repeatedly said police for the most part demonstrated great restraint. The mayor was resoundly booed when he stepped up to speak at a memorial service for George Floyd in Brooklyn.

When asked about a viral video showing police accelerating into a crowd of protesters, de Blasio said the incident and other potential incidents of misconduct would be investigated, but defended the police action nonetheless. Although Cuomo said at one point that officers had failed to do their jobs, Cuomo walked back that criticism and said officers were largely acting appropriately. However, he announced that state Attorney General Letitia James would look into the police response to the protests. Reporters at one point asked both leaders about widely circulated videos of what appeared to be police brutality toward protesters, and they both said they hadn’t seen them.

BUFFALO POLICE CAUGHT IN A LIE

Buffalo police were caught on camera shoving a 75-year-old man to the ground after he approached several officers. His head made a loud sound as it hit the

ZACH WILLIAMS; LEV RADIN/SHUTTERSTOCK

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concrete, and he was visibly bleeding as a parade of officers walked past him without providing aid. In an initial statement, the Buffalo Police Department said the man tripped and fell, but the video showed an officer pushing him. Soon after, the department suspended two officers involved in the incident and the county district attorney launched an investigation. Cuomo responded in statement, calling it “wholly unjustified and utterly disgraceful.”

THE LEGISLATIVE RESPONSE

A number of lawmakers at both the New York City and state levels are committing to passing police reform measures, and de Blasio and Cuomo to varying degrees have supported recent pushes to implement reforms. One of the biggest pieces of legislation at the state level is a bill to repeal Section 50-a of the Civil Rights Law. It currently prevents police disciplinary records from being released to the public, and critics have

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long said it stands in the way of police transparency and accountability. Cuomo has said he would sign a bill reforming that law, but did not say he would support legislation fully repealing it. Another bill would ban the use of chokeholds across the state. The move is already prohibited by the New York City Police Department.

New York City Council Speaker Corey Johnson said the council would vote on a bill to criminalize the use of a chokehold by police officers. He said it has enough support to override a mayoral veto. De Blasio has said he would support the bill if it includes a life-and-death situation exception, which a new version of the bill does not include. Additionally, a growing number of city lawmakers are calling for a significant cut to the NYPD’s budget, particularly in light of the massive budgetary shortfall facing the city. Some have even said they would not vote for a budget that did not slash police funding.

TUESDAY 6/9 City & State hosts a webinar on New York’s recovery and the reopening of the economy, with Rep. Tom Suozzi, Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul and others, starting at 2 p.m.

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FDR’s playbook could spark economic recovery The only reference point for the economic collapse COVID-19 has caused is the Great Depression, when as many as one-quarter of American workers were unemployed. In light of that, it’s worth looking at how the United States spent its way out of the depression to find ideas for building a strong economic future.

And, even on its own, New York state can imitate some of President Franklin Roosevelt’s successes is his nation-rescuing New Deal.

First, the government must invest in economic expansion and not let up until the economy has fully recovered.

Massive federal spending, beginning in 1933, began to lift the country out of economic despair, but a conservative Supreme Court ruled some of the programs unconstitutional. That, plus modest recovery and ill-considered concern about deficit spending given the circumstance led to complacency.

By 1937 the situation remained dire.

Ultimately, massive spending to fight World War II proved the ox that pulled the country out of its ditch.

No rational person wants a war, but what we learned is that the remedy for a depression is huge public spending. The risk of doing too little is far greater than the risk of spending too much. The federal government is best placed to fund it because it has the capacity to borrow money – and currently to do so at extremely low interest rates – and can create programs at national scale.

Infrastructure programs like the Tennessee Valley Authority, which brought electricity to rural areas in the South, helped lift the nation from its knees and delivered decades of benefits that continue to this day.

But New York state should take bold action of its own now in preparation for post-COVID-19 revitalization.

THURSDAY 6/11 The New York City Council Committee on Fire and Emergency Management hosts an oversight hearing on the city’s preparedness for a potential second wave of COVID-19.

There is no shortage of investment projects. Renewal of downstate’s limping mass transportation systems, development of a rail freight connection across New York Harbor, restoring damaged roads, bridges, and tunnels across the state, addressing the affordable housing crisis, replacing a centuries-old electric network with a climate change-conducive smart grid as promised in a Green New Deal for New York, and on and on.

The challenge is paying for it, but doing so is possible. New York should issue $100 billion or more of revitalization bonds. To make them affordable, the bonds should have a 100-year term, with a fixed rate of interest a point or two over our current historically low rate of inflation. Repayment should start after three years or so, to give the stimulus a chance to produce the gains that would help pay for them.

Who would buy them? It is a perfect time for Wall Street’s financial institutions, bailed out by the public during the financial crisis little more than a decade ago, to step up and ensure successful placement. New York’s public pension funds, with their long time horizons, can do their part, along with New York-based endowments and national ones that recognize New York’s unique place in the nation and the unusually horrific impact of COVID-19 on the state. The bonds can be offered to the public as well, for the many New Yorkers of means to demonstrate local patriotism at a time when it matters.

The plan might require an amendment to the state constitution and other measures that are not trivial. But the right leadership could make things happen in time to put New Yorkers back to work in a massive way, as soon as public health considerations allow.

-Chris McNickle writes about New York government and politics.

SATURDAY 6/13 Early voting opens across the state for the congressional and state legislative primaries. It runs through Sunday, 6/21, before election day on Tuesday, 6/23.

INSIDE DOPE

This is the first major election in New York with early voting, and it’s amid a pandemic.

It isn’t clear how many people will vote in person, with massively expanded vote-by-mail.

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HERE HAVE not been reports thus far that the New York City Police Department has used tear gas, rubber bullets or flash grenades to subdue protesters the way many other police departments across the country have, but videos of the NYPD’s use of police vehicles, helicopters, bicycles, pepper spray and even one officer brandishing a firearm have drawn widespread criticism. Representatives from the

PEPPER SPRAY

Hand-held OC pepper spray, which stands for oleoresin capsicum, has also been used by the NYPD to subdue protesters. A video of a police officer appearing to pull down a protester’s face mask to spray them with pepper spray went viral on May 30.

MASKS?

After a nasty, ultimately public feud between the NYPD and the city’s health commissioner, the NYPD obtained hundreds of thousands of protective face masks for officers.

Since the protests began, however, groups of police working closely together have been repeatedly photographed without them in a city that is at the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic.

BODY CAMERAS

By February 2019, 20,000 body cameras had been distributed to all NYPD uniformed patrol officers.

Officers are required to record arrests and summonses and uses of force, in addition to other incidents.

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NYPD did not respond to requests for comment for this story.

With more than 50,000 employees and a $6 billion budget, the NYPD is better funded than some militaries.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio initially deployed 4,000 officers to respond to the protests, but then upped that number to 8,000 on June 1 as the demonstrations grew. Here are some of the tools and weapons that NYPD officers bring to a protest.

WHAT NYPD OFFICERS ARE BRINGING TO THE PROTESTS

BY HOLLY PRETSKY

BODY ARMOR

The city began replacing NYPD officers’ body armor in 2015, according to the NYPD website. The newer, lighter armor is typically worn beneath the uniform and protects officers from bullets and stabbings. In 2016, partly in response to the killing of five police officers in Dallas, the city made an emergency purchase for more than $7 million in additional heavy-duty body armor and accessories from The Safariland Group.

BATONS

In 2019, the city put out a bid for 3,000 to 6,000 26-inch polycarbonate batons that “shall not bend … or break when exposed to extreme temperatures.” Batons, both metal extendable ones and longer polycarbonate models, have thus far been a primary police device for crowd control, both as a signaling tool and as a weapon for hitting. According to Police Magazine, batons can also be used to subdue someone during an arrest by placing the baton across a person’s legs.

GUNS

In a stark illustration of the chaos in some New York City protests, a video appeared to show an NYPD officer pointing his gun at protesters on May 31 outside the Strand bookstore in Manhattan.

A subsequent video shared by the Police Benevolent Association appeared to show the officer reacting to a person hitting a higher-ranking police official over the head.

ZIP TIE HANDCUFFS

Hundreds of people have been arrested since the protests began. Videos show police carrying multiple pairs of plastic handcuffs on their belts, and wrestling people to the ground to put them on.

KBIROS, OMPHOTO, STEVE SANCHEZ PHOTOS, TETIANA.PHOTOGRAPHER/SHUTTERSTOCK

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A Q&A with ThriveNYC Director

Our front-line workers are exposed to a level of death and trauma and grief that they’ve never experienced before.

SUSAN HERMAN What is the mental health impact of the coronavirus?

I think it’s important to realize that it’s common to be sad or anxious during a situation like this. But just to make it a little more concrete, I think that losing loved ones and maybe losing a job and being worried about whether you can afford food or whether you can afford rent, those are very concrete things that have happened to hundreds of thousands of people and that produces depression and anxiety. On top of that, we have more social isolation. Aging New Yorkers are particularly vulnerable to depression and loneliness. Our

front-line workers and our essential workers who are out every day risking their lives and many of them, particularly our health care workers, are exposed to a level of death and trauma and grief that they’ve never experienced before.

ThriveNYC has come under scrutiny in recent years. Gary Belkin, who helped create ThriveNYC, wrote a piece for us in March and said: “Those critical of ThriveNYC for not doing enough for serious mental illness actually demand too little, and aim way too low. Narrowing, rather than finally broadening, the scope of what the

mental health system is tasked and resourced to do, heads in the wrong direction.” Any reaction to that?

I think what Dr. Belkin was getting at was that in order to really focus on mental health appropriately, we chose to look across the lifespan and to try and address mental health needs as they emerge when you’re a child and a student so that some of the problems people face as adults could be averted.

What we’ve done of the last 15 months that the city has had this mayoral office for the first time in its history focusing on mental health is to try to define the categories of our work

and show that we not only have reached hundreds of thousands of people but what the outcomes are. We are not a mental health system. That exists, that is mostly through our health department and Health + Hospitals. Most of the funding for mental health in New York City before Thrive came either through the state or the federal government. That is still true, except that Thrive is invested in trying to fill critical gaps in our mental health system.

We are now supporting programs in 12 different city agencies. The money goes directly from our budget department to those city agencies. It doesn’t come

through Thrive – it goes directly to those agencies.

What we do is to provide oversight, to make sure they are measuring what they are doing and they are staying clear to the model that they proposed. Over this year, we have not only been putting out output measures – meaning how many people do we reach regularly – but we created 90 outcome measures for all of our programs.

Any New Yorker can get on to our website, look at our budget and look at all of our metrics. It’s kind of old news to say we haven’t clarified what we do or what our metrics are.

They’ve been up on our website for several months.

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MAYOR’S OFFICE OF THRIVENYC

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Protesters and NYPD supporters only agree on one thing: The mayor needs to resign.

by J E F F C O L T I N

Y

OU COULD HEAR the chant clearly in the crowd of hundreds at the foot of the Manhattan Bridge: “De Blasio resign! De Blasio resign!” The antiracism protesters in Chinatown on June 2 were not the only ones to share the sentiment lately.

Hawk Newsome, president of Black Lives Matter of Greater New York, called for New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s resignation in an interview on NY1 that morning, saying that the mayor “has failed black New York time and time again.” Mehdi Hasan, a columnist at the leftist outlet The Intercept, wrote that “de Blasio needs to resign.” And it’s not just the left. Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, now a close ally of President Donald Trump, said that either de Blasio should resign or that Gov. Andrew Cuomo should remove him from office.

A petition demanding de Blasio’s resignation, started by Republican Staten Island Assembly candidate Marko Kepi, had more than 2,000 signatures as of June 5. Another petition that called for de Blasio’s “impeachment” in 2014 because he is “anti-police” and a “socialist” has resurfaced and had more than 120,000 signatures.

It seems everyone can find something to be angry about when it comes to de Blasio. The protestors like Newsome have excoriated the mayor for the NYPD’s heavy-handed response to the largely peaceful protests and marches that mourn the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis and call for an end to police brutality, especially against black people and Latinos. The mayor earned his strongest criticism for his initial defense of the NYPD officers who drove their SUV forward into a crowd of protestors blocking them even though it appeared that the cars could have backed up.

On the other side, conservatives like Giuliani attacked de Blasio for not doing more to stop the widespread destruction of property that has occurred on recent nights, sometimes following on heels of the antiracism protests. That’s what got Gov. Andrew Cuomo musing

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at his June 2 press conference about how he could remove the mayor – “technically the governor could remove a mayor, but you’d have to file charges, and then there’s an acting mayor,” he said . To be clear, it was all hypothetical, and Cuomo has a habit of pointing out what his theoretical powers would be even when he’s not intending to use them so dramatically. But even if it wasn’t quite a threat, it did come with a scathing critique of de Blasio’s government. “I’m not happy with last night,” Cuomo said. “Police did not do their job last night.”

There’s no reason to think de Blasio is going to resign.

He has devoted too much of his life to politics to just give up now, and while he may not seem to particularly enjoy the job, his presidential run proved that he isn’t lacking in personal ambition. And de Blasio has brushed off earlier calls for his resignation. First, upon the murders of Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu, NYPD officers who were killed in an ambush in 2014. Later, after he was campaigning for president in Iowa when much of Manhattan faced a summer blackout. Those earlier movements never got much further than the New York Post editorial page, and while this recent round of calls for resignation includes New Yorkers across the political spectrum, the mayor doesn’t seem bothered.

“It doesn’t appear that any of it affects him,” said John DeSio, a political consultant with Risa Heller Communications.

“The farthest left and the farthest right and everybody in between has some reason to say ‘he’s a shitty mayor and he needs to go.’ And it’s like it rolls right off his back.”

While many politicians and allies of the mayor have shared harsh criticism of de Blasio, few have actually said they want him out of office. New York City Councilman Eric Ulrich, a Republican, called for a Council vote of no confidence in the mayor, but that’s highly unlikely in the overwhelmingly Democratic Council . Even New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, who would potentially have the most to gain from de Blasio’s resignation, since he would temporarily take over as mayor, didn’t go as far as to tell him to step down.

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“All I want is leadership,” Williams told City & State on June 2, when asked about the mayor. “So if you’re going to step up, great. If you’re not, then we need new leaders.”

Of course, the situation could change quickly – particularly if somebody dies as a result of either the protests or looting in New York City. But for now, de Blasio is safe in his job until the end of his final term on December 31, 2021.

But the same can’t be said about his future after leaving office, as de Blasio’s legacy could be the New York of the last week – protestors marching against the kind of policing he promised to end, while looters shatter windows and clash with cops in the street.

To this day, you’re hard-pressed to find a mention of the mayoralty of David Dinkins without an immediate reference to the 1991 Crown Heights Riots. The circumstances were different, but some of the story was

the same then as it is today. Dinkins, like de Blasio, was accused of calling off the police and letting people riot. De Blasio was working in City Hall at the time, taking calls from New Yorkers who were fearful and furious about the violence.

But in the three decades since, it doesn’t seem like de Blasio learned how to respond.

“Now the second half of his second term is filled with a complete and total disregard and lack of understanding of the anger and anguish of the residents of his own city,” said Christina Greer, political science professor at Fordham University, and host of the FAQ NYC podcast.

A former aide to the mayor, who asked for anonymity to speak freely, thought that the mayor’s response has been “abysmal,” but that these days of protests after the death of George Floyd would only be one part of de Blasio’s complicated legacy. “I don’t think this one response will

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New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, flanked by Police Commissioner Dermot Shea and police union president Patrick Lynch, on June 3 after an officer was stabbed and a shootout followed.

be the defining moment of his legacy the way it is for Dinkins,” the aide said.

But many of the people in de Blasio’s orbit have started thinking of their own legacy.

Some of the mayor’s once-close allies have

started to openly criticize him – first during his initial, slow response to the coronavirus pandemic in New York, and now for his response to the protests. More than 200 current and former staffers have written a letter

“WHAT’S HE GOING TO DO? THERE’S NO JOB WAITING FOR HIM. THERE’S NO ORGANIZATION THAT WOULD BE LIKE ‘YOU KNOW WHO WE SHOULD PUT IN CHARGE OF THIS? BILL DE BLASIO.’” – John DeSio, political consultant

denouncing his record on police accountability and demanding new reforms. Under City Council Speaker Corey Johnson, the city’s legislative body had been increasingly defining itself in opposition to de Blasio.

And even that has escalated in recent weeks, with Johnson vowing to criminalize chokeholds by passing a bill that could earn the first veto of de Blasio’s mayoralty.

“This is the time to remove yourself from alliances with the mayor, and not necessarily be penalized by New Yorkers for doing so,” Greer said. “So I think that, you know, we’ll see a lot more intraparty dissension over the next few months.”

The aides and Council members are all planning ahead for a life under a new mayor starting in January 2022, and so has de Blasio. It’s a poorly kept secret that the mayor is interested in seeing his wife Chirlane McCray as the next Brooklyn borough president, but the past week may have ruined any chance for that. De Blasio and McCray have always presented themselves as a political package deal, and the mayor’s sinking stock will hurt his wife.

“You can’t run on our record, when Bill and I were helping New Yorkers when you have so many New Yorkers who were disappointed and disgusted with the way Bill de Blasio has handled so many crises across the city,” Greer said of McCray’s potential argument to voters.

And, of course, nobody knows exactly what de Blasio plans to do next after leaving office in 2022 – other than move back to Brooklyn. His own presidential exit plan failed, and any hopes of joining a Bernie Sanders presidential administration have disappeared too.

“What’s he going to do? There’s no job waiting for him,” DeSio told City & State.

“There’s no organization that would be like ‘You know who we should put in charge of this? Bill de Blasio, because he did so much for us when he was mayor.’”

In 2017, Dinkins told The New York Times that in the newspaper’s prewritten obituary for him, “They’ll say, ‘David Dinkins, first black mayor of the City of New York,’ and the next sentence will be about Crown Heights.”

But Dinkins’ life after Gracie Mansion has been, by all accounts, positive. He became a professor at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs (from which de Blasio received a master’s degree). He hosted a weekly talk show on the radio and wrote a memoir. De Blasio could do worse than to have the same fate.

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With reporting by Rebecca C. Lewis

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Who’s really calling the shots at the NYPD – and scaring City Hall away from police reform.

by B E N A D L E R

STEVE SANCHEZ PHOTOS/SHUTTERSTOCK

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HE CHANT WAS hard to decipher through a bullhorn on a Tribeca street on June 1, all the more so because the message was a bit unfamiliar. But, listen to the video posted online enough times, and you can make out what the protester was yelling: “Fuck the PBA!” That’s the commonly used acronym for the New York City Police Benevolent Association, the largest union representing NYPD officers and the largest municipal police union in the world. The average New Yorker may not know anything about the PBA and its counterpart, the Sergeants Benevolent Association, or SBA, but the two unions are arguably as responsible for the current state of New York City policing as Mayor Bill de Blasio and NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea. (New York City has five police unions that often have similar views, but the lieutenants, detectives and captains unions are much smaller.)

Certainly, close observers of New York politics have become familiar with the two major police unions and their extremely outspoken leadership. PBA President Patrick

Lynch issues enraged statements in response to any blowback against a police officer for using force. For instance, in 2004, when then-NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly concluded that it was unjustified for a police officer to shoot an unarmed black man in Brooklyn who was engaged in no criminal activity while he was in a housing project stairwell near the rooftop, Lynch reacted by saying, “Commissioner Kelly gave a message to the 23,000 New York City police officers that said basically this: Take all the risks of doing your job, go up on all those roofs, patrol all those subway platforms, walk the streets day and night, take the risks to yourself, take the risks to your family, but then when the worst happens, when there’s a tragedy, that you will not have the backing of the New York police commissioner.”

That is, if anything, mild by Lynch’s standards. Usually, he goes on to predict that terror and chaos will be the inevitable result of the cop-hating, criminal-coddling politicians’ latest mistake. If there’s a use of force by a police officer that the PBA would admit is wrong and worthy of punishment, no one else knows what it is.

(A PBA spokesman did not respond to an interview request, or to a question as to whether Lynch has ever supported firing a cop for police brutality.)

Last year, Lynch even attacked then-Commissioner James O’Neill for firing Daniel Pantaleo, the officer who choked Eric Garner on Staten Island five Police arrest protesters in front of Trump Tower on May 30. Police union leadership sets the tone for police in New York City.

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years earlier. “The job is dead,“ Lynch said after Pantaleo’s termination. “Our police officers are in distress. Not because they have a difficult job, not because they put themselves in danger, but because they realize they’re abandoned.”

The rank-and-file officers seem to agree with Lynch’s approach: Last year, running unopposed, he was reelected to his sixth term as PBA president.

Lynch’s most infamous comment, the one that many believe set New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio running scared from the cause of police reform, came after a man shot two NYPD officers in Brooklyn in 2014. The slain officers’ “blood on hands starts at the steps of City Hall in the office of the mayor,” Lynch said. The PBA president blamed de Blasio because the mayor acknowledged, in the wake of Garner’s death months earlier, that racially disparate policing exists in New York City. Cops subsequently turned their backs on de Blasio at the slain officers’ funeral, and the mayor has sided with the cops ever since.

Now, almost six years later, de Blasio’s erstwhile liberal base has been disappointed by seeing continued instances of police brutality, especially during the recent spate of protests against systemic racism in the wake of George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis. As The New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg observed on June 1, “But late Saturday night, addressing the unrest in New York, de Blasio seemed to see the confrontations almost entirely through the eyes of law enforcement.” Of the cops who rammed protesters blocking their SUVs and throwing objects at the vehicles, de Blasio said, “I’m not going to blame officers who were trying to deal with an absolutely impossible situation.” In response to this incident, along with the videos of NYPD officers attacking protesters with their hands, pepper spray and bikes, even some of the mayor’s own former advisers criticized him. On June 1, de Blasio’s position evolved into one more critical of the officers involved.

But to understand why the mayor does what he does, one must understand what he’s up against. On June 1, The City reported that since 2015 the PBA has spent more than $1.4 million on lobbying and cam-

New York City Police Benevolent Association President Patrick Lynch blamed Mayor Bill de Blasio for the killings of two police officers in 2014, and cops turned their backs on de Blasio at the memorial. The mayor has distanced himself from police reform since.

paign contributions. In addition to conventional political advocacy for their interests, as City & State noted in a 2019 cover story, “The cops also have the power to undermine a mayor by refusing to do their job.”

For the week that ended Jan. 4, 2015, and just after Lynch blamed the two officers’ murders on de Blasio, NYPD officers made 56% fewer arrests and wrote 92% fewer tickets than the same period in the prior year. The PBA has also moved to block new policies intended to increase transparency and accountability, for example by suing to prevent the release of body camera footage.

“De Blasio meant what he said when he vowed to change the NYPD,” said one former de Blasio speechwriter, who requested anonymity to speak frankly. “But then he tried, and there was infinitely more pushback than he’d anticipated. Maybe the

“BLOOD ON HANDS STARTS AT THE STEPS OF CITY HALL IN THE OFFICE OF THE MAYOR.” – PBA President Patrick Lynch, after two NYPD officers were shot in Brooklyn in 2014

most powerful force in the municipal government openly revolted against him, and it terrified him. It has ever since.”

As a gel-haired, pinstripe-suited union boss, Lynch is in many ways a throwback to an earlier era in New York politics, in which white men with tough-on-crime views were politically mainstream and brass-knuckled political brawlers from public sector unions were the norm. In archetypal NYPD fashion, Lynch was raised in a large Irish Catholic family in Bayside, Queens.

SBA President Ed Mullins cuts a very similar profile to Lynch – only he makes his counterpart seem mild-mannered by comparison. In February, when de Blasio condemned two shootings of police officers, the SBA’s Twitter account responded, “Mayor DeBlasio, the members of the NYPD are declaring war on you! We do not respect you, DO NOT visit us in hospitals. You sold the NYPD to the vile creatures, the 1% who hate cops but vote for you.” In May, when it was revealed that New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene Commissioner Oxiris Barbot had months earlier angrily refused to hand over face masks intended for doctors and nurses to NYPD officers demanding them for the department, the SBA wrote, “Truth is this bitch has blood on her hands but why should anyone be surprised the NYPD has suffered under DeBlasio since he became Mayor.” On May 31, the

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union leaked personal information about the mayor’s daughter, Chiara de Blasio, stemming from her arrest for failure to disperse at a peaceful civil disobedience protest in Manhattan. The SBA called Chiara de Blasio a “rioting anarchist” and alleged that she had been throwing objects at police, which was not mentioned in the police report. “Is that why you’re tying our hands, because your daughter is out there?” Mullins asked the mayor, rhetorically, in an interview with the Times.

Mullins, however, rejects the notion that his union opposes police reform.

“The SBA isn’t an impediment to reform,” he said in a statement emailed to City & State. “We represent our diverse membership through no matter who is mayor, but especially in the face of one who so clearly was never interested in staying in the city long enough to gain the credibility needed to lead in a crisis.”

It would be a mistake to attribute the union dynamics to just the personalities of these individual union leaders. The presidents of the PBA and SBA are elected and they represent the views of many police officers. On June 2, Mullins posted a letter on Twitter that he sent to his members that read, in part, “I know you are being held back and used as pawns.”

At the bottom, he included anonymous comments he said he received from his members, including this: “We have pepperball guns, tear gas, and other anti criminal riot apparatus such as horses not being deployed!”

The police unions and their various presidents have feuded with every New York City mayor in recent memory – sometimes adopting explicitly discriminatory or bigoted positions. In 1966, when then-Mayor John Lindsay increased civilian review of the NYPD, John Cassese, then-president of the PBA, griped, “I am sick and tired of giving in to minority groups, with their whims and their gripes and shouting.” The union sponsored a referendum effort that successfully defeated the measure. In 1973, the PBA sought to block women from joining street patrols. In 1978, the union didn’t want to ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, warning that allowing LGBTQ officers to serve could be “catastrophic.” Even the law-and-order-obsessed Rudy Giuliani, who the PBA blamed for a lack of pay raises and supposed staffing shortages, received caustic criticism from Lynch.

“Pat Lynch is so famous for racist and vitriolic rhetoric, which fuels the fire, but it’s overly simplistic and maybe even dangerous to make it seem like it’s about Pat Lynch,” said Joo-Hyun Kang, the director of Communities United for Police Reform. “When we look at police unions in

City & State New York

UNMASKED Many NYPD officers aren’t wearing PPE. Could that exacerbate the coronavirus threat?

DESPITE THE LINGERING presence of the coronavirus15in CityAndStateNY.com the city, New York City Police Department officers responding to protests were seen in large groups not wearing face masks.

The force said early on during the city’s coronavirus crisis that it was not being provided with personal protective equipment, such as face masks, that could help prevent officers from contracting the coronavirus. In early April, about 18% of the police force had either called out sick or was in quarantine.

Three weeks ago, the Sergeants Benevolent Association, one of the city’s largest police unions, referred to city Health Commissioner Oxiris Barbot as a “bitch” in a controversial tweet for denying officers face masks in March that were being reserved for hospitals. The NYPD attempted to seize 500,000 N95 masks meant for the city’s health department at a warehouse in New Jersey. The officers were only provided with 50,000, which resulted in a heated conversation between NYPD Chief of Department Terence Monahan and Barbot. Days later, the NYPD was provided with 500,000 masks.

So the NYPD has been well aware of the health risks associated with the virus for months as evidenced by their attempts to seize masks meant for health care workers, yet they

repeatedly appeared without them.

State Sen. Jessica Ramos told City & State in a tweet that she encountered three maskless officers while attending a protest in Jackson Heights, Queens, on Saturday. According to Ramos, when she asked why the officers weren’t wearing masks, they didn’t answer.

Shelby McClelland, a protester who was present at several demonstrations over the weekend, told City & State that she encountered a number of officers without masks who refused to put them on when asked to by protesters. “People asked them to put masks on and they straight-up refused and said, ‘Don’t worry about us, worry about you,’” she said.

While the risk of transmitting or contracting the coronavirus decreases significantly outside, large gatherings of any kind are still risky.

Nonmedical masks and face coverings can help reduce the spread of the virus, but they’re not foolproof.

Some protesters were also without masks. However, they are not civil servants whose job is to serve and protect people – that responsibility belongs to the NYPD. - Amanda Luz Henning Santiago Despite a pandemic that has claimed the lives of police officers, many officers have been eschewing masks.

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June 8, 2020

Social media videos have shown several police officers hitting single protesters at once with batons. Thanks to union contracts, it is difficult to swiftly fire a cop for excessive use of force. The police union is currently suing to reinstate Daniel Pantaleo, the officer who choked Eric Garner.

other jurisdictions around the country, it’s not that different from New York. Police unions block forward motion on police reform. We would argue that the police unions as an institution, as well as the NYPD, because they’re not as separate as people say, have outsized political power.”

Some of this may be endemic to the nature of public employee unions. It is the norm for even more progressive unions to jealously guard their employees’ prerogatives – just look at teachers unions, the bane of self-styled education reformers.

Past presidents of the United Federation of Teachers, the New York City public school teacher union, include such famously uncompromising figures as Albert Shanker and Randi Weingarten.

“I think the reason most cops act this way is that’s how bureaucracy and institutions work,” said the former de Blasio speechwriter. “They have their own interests. If you’re in the NYPD, you’re responsible for solving the city and country’s mental illness problems, you’re the first line of response in emergencies, you’re essentially a social worker in a city and country that doesn’t devote enough resources to solving those problems. If you’re out on the street and one of your friends gets shot or you feel like the public is too quick to blame

you, you and the institutions that represent you are mostly devoted to safeguarding your interests. It’s going to put (police officers) in a defensive, angry crouch.”

De Blasio denies that he has been shaken by the police unions’ resistance. “Anyone with eyes to see knows that I have made my views clear on the need to change the NYPD and have often incurred the wrath of certain union leaders and haven’t changed my views at all,” the mayor said in a May 31 press conference. “I want to see more faster, speedier, more transparent discipline when it comes to police.” The mayor’s office declined to provide additional comments for this story.

But civil rights advocates say that the NYPD often avoids the “speedier, more transparent discipline” that is currently possible. Due to union contracts, it is exceedingly difficult to swiftly fire a cop for excessive use of force, as they are entitled to a departmental trial and could sue to get their job back – as the PBA is currently doing on behalf of Pantaleo – if they want to argue that the trial wasn’t conducted fairly. “If they wanted to move discipline, they could fire cops within 2-3 months,” Kang said. “There’s no reason to be going years and years,” as was the case with Pantaleo, Kang added.

In videos from the recent antiracism protests, “We saw white shirts,” meaning higher-ranking officers such as lieutenants and captains, “throwing people to the ground,” Kang said. “Those names should be made public. They should be put on immediate suspension and there’s a disciplinary process that needs to be filed. What the mayor and NYPD are banking on is the concern will die down and no one will be asking in a year what happened to those cops.”

Kang also noted that Francisco Garcia, the officer recorded punching a man who allegedly violated social distancing regulations in Manhattan in early May, was merely placed on modified desk duty. “(The NYPD) should have put him on disciplinary suspension, which is the most they can do, filed charges the next day and fast-tracked for a department trial,” Kang said.

If the police unions’ political posture is the natural result of the underlying conditions, then they will remain an impediment to the accountability and transparency measures that civil libertarians propose, such as repealing 50-a, the state law that blocks the disclosure of NYPD personnel records. But that doesn’t mean laws and departmental practices can’t be changed. According to Kang, “It starts with political leadership.” But for the kind of leadership she and other police reform advocates want to see, it will be at least another year and a half until a new mayor takes office.

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June 8, 2020

City & State New York

STANDING IN THE WAY OF ACCOUNTABILITY All the reasons violent cops probably won’t get punished SOCIAL MEDIA STREAMS have been filled with videos of New York City Police Department officers using force on protesters who did not appear to be resisting or fighting back at all, but if New Yorkers are hoping that the officers will be punished they’re likely to be disappointed.

There were reports of a man with a bleeding head being shoved to the ground by police, widespread reports of police officers taking people’s bikes and video of cops pushing through an apparently peaceful crowd.

Those are just a few of the many instances of police officers potentially violating the NYPD patrol guide – and even the law – in the last week, as officers responded to protests against racism and police violence.

New Yorkers looking for accountability from their police department probably won’t get it. The NYPD has found many ways, both institutional and personal, to make sure the public can’t easily find out which officers might be breaking the rules and what punishment they might receive.

Many officers have been covering up their badge numbers with black elastic bands.

The mourning bands are meant to honor the dozens of NYPD personnel who have died from the coronavirus in the last few months, but the department’s patrol guide is clear that the bands should be worn higher on the badge and not cover the officers’ shield number or rank designation. Officers can often be visually identified by the public in other ways, by numbers on their helmet or their nameplate – but not always, as some officers have also removed their name tags.

The clear attempt at obfuscating identity has struck a

Cops wearing a mourning band around their badges aren’t supposed to cover their sheild numbers. But many are ignoring that rule.

nerve. The National Lawyers Guild has threatened to sue, saying “this practice provides a sense of impunity to members of the service that they can violate demonstrators’ rights without consequence.”

Assemblyman Harvey Epstein, a Manhattan Democrat, introduced legislation to make it a misdemeanor for officers to obscure their badge numbers. In an open letter to New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, hundreds of his former staffers demanded that he immediately fire the officers who have covered their badges at protests.

However, the NYPD hasn’t seemed particularly concerned. NYPD Chief of Department Terence Monahan shrugged it off when City & State asked him about the practice. “It’s supposed to be off the numbers,” Monahan said, referring to the black bands. “But sometimes when

you wrestle with people on the street, it moves down.”

Others attending protests in New York have noticed that many officers have their body cameras turned off. That isn’t necessarily against policy, since officers are only required to turn on body cameras in specific situations, such as when they are interacting with a suspect.

Some civil rights advocates have called for body cameras to be turned on in a wider set of circumstances. There is widespread disagreement on that issue, with many privacy advocates raising concerns about the cameras being used as active surveillance.

Nor do the mayor or governor seem to be overly concerned with holding officers accountable. While de Blasio ordered an investigation of the NYPD’s response to protesters, it will be run by two of his own appointees, rather than

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an independent body. And de Blasio said on June 4 that he had not yet seen any of the widely shared videos of police hitting protestors with batons. Gov. Andrew Cuomo also seemed to deny that cops used batons on peaceful protesters, despite apparent evidence to the contrary caught on numerous videos.

The primary way that New York has limited police accountability is through an interpretation of New York state Civil Rights Law Section 50-a, which severely limits the release of police disciplinary records. That means New Yorkers can’t legally see whether certain officers have a history of complaints against them or whether they have faced internal discipline from the department. Active disciplinary investigations are also made secret and no details are revealed, unless reporters can attend the hearings held inside NYPD headquarters.

Criminal justice reform-minded legislators have been pushing for a repeal or a reform of 50-a for years, but it has failed to pass. Now, thanks to the protests, the movement to repeal has earned more public support, and New York legislators’ inboxes have been flooded with demands to pass a bill.

They will face opposition from New York’s police unions, which have long opposed increasing transparency. But Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who has previously shied away from supporting the change, is now calling for reforming the law, though not repealing. Although New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio says he supports reforming the law, he declined to release the names or disciplinary records of police officers who are currently being investigated in connection to the protests. If 50-a were repealed, the public could know much more information about the officers who drove their police cars forward into crowds of protestors in Brooklyn. “There are things we cannot release under state law and we don’t do illegal acts,” de Blasio said that his Law Department told him, “which is why I would like us to simply get rid of a broken law.”

–Jeff Coltin

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Two black lawmakers attended a protest as peacemakers. The NYPD answered with pepper spray.

by A M A N D A L U Z H EN N I NG SA NTI AG O

O

N MAY 29, Assemblywoman Diana Richardson and state Sen. Zellnor Myrie attended what they had hoped would be a peaceful protest against police brutality and institutionalized racism at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center. However, despite their positions of power as state legislators, both were pepper-sprayed by New York City Police Department officers.

“They (the NYPD officers) didn’t need to know who we were, they didn’t need to know our title, for them to do their job,” Richardson told City & State.

“I have all of the things that you quote-unquote want to avoid trouble and have a bunch of degrees for which I’m paying dearly,” Myrie told City & State. “I have a pretty good pedigree by way of my profession as a state senator. I have no criminal records. I went to a peaceful protest. Regardless of all those things, I was still subject to unjust treatment by the NYPD.”

SHANNON STAPLETON/REUTERS

“PAI

He added: “I’m hoping that my experience shows people that this isn’t some sort of made up grievance.

This isn’t a fake agitation. This is a deep-seated frustration with the system that has ignored us for way too long.”

Both lawmakers recounted that as the sun began to set on that Friday evening, officers with bicycles began surrounding them and the group of protesters they were demonstrating alongside. The officers began pressing

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IN.”

State Sen. Zellnor Myrie was pepper-sprayed and arrested at a peaceful protest May 29. He tweeted this image with a one-word description: “Pain.”

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June 8, 2020

Assemblywoman Diana Richardson said being pepper sprayed during a protest shows “the officers are out of control.”

ly. However, both lawmakers are hoping to advance a package of legislation, along with other state lawmakers, that would hold cops more accountable for their actions. Included in the package of bills, which have been around for years, is a bill to repeal Section 50-a, which prevents the public from accessing the personnel records of first responders.

“I think the legislation is a first good step. It’s not one bill by itself; it’s the package and each addresses a very specific issue regarding the negative patterns of behavior we’ve seen with the NYPD. ...

People want accountability and transparency,” Richardson said. “Many feel that the NYPD has a badge and license to kill unjustly. When we look at everyone in the streets (protesting), it’s about pain and holding accountability and the legislation puts us on the path to where we want to go.”

Gov. Andrew Cuomo has said that he will “sign” a bill to “reform” the 50-a law, but Richardson pointed out that Cuomo could introduce his own bill to repeal it at any time.

“Legislation is one part of the solution,” Myrie said. “We are seeing another solution, protests, advocacy, agitation, as another point. But I do believe that legislation will help move the needle forward (when it comes to addressing systemic racism).

I think it’s a step in the right direction to help restore public trust. I think we have to remove disciplinary proceedings from the auspice of the police department so that they (New Yorkers) will feel confident that there are consequences for police combat.”

He added: “We’re talking about a centuries-old problem. People have been mistreated by authorities in this country forever so, no, one piece of legislation is not going to rid us of that DNA. But I think it will start to help change behavior.”

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“THERE WAS NOTHING HAPPENING TO WARRANT THAT RESPONSE FROM THE OFFICERS PRESENT. WE WERE ASSAULTED BY THE NYPD.” – Assemblywoman Diana Richardson

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the wheels of their bikes into their bodies and then proceeded to pepper-spray them.

Richardson, eyes stinging from the chemical irritant, was pulled out of the group by a fellow protester who helped her rinse out her eyes. Myrie, on the other hand, was handcuffed with a zip tie, eyes still burning.

Myrie was identified by an officer soon after being brought to an area where other detained protesters had been gathered, but he could not shake the feeling that he shouldn’t have been the only person released.

Richardson and Myrie had intended to act as peacemakers between the officers and the protesters, but then officers chose to act aggressively toward them. “I was absolutely shocked because where we were and who we were amongst, there was nothing happening to warrant that response from the officers present,” Richardson said, as her voice trembled over the phone. “We were assaulted by the NYPD.” Since being pepper-sprayed, Richardson has been having difficulty dealing with the lasting psychological impacts of the incident. “I’m really emotionally hurt and fragile about the situation, and I have been feeling very down and depressed inside,” the assemblywoman said, audibly trying to hold back tears. “It speaks volumes about what exactly is wrong here in America and how the officers are out of control,” she added.

Myrie said that he is similarly haunted by the experience and has been questioning why the NYPD acted so aggressive-

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June 8, 2020

LEADERLESS The organic organizing behind New York City’s protests

by R E B E C C A C . L E W I S

W

Only a handful of the protests in New York City have been organized by Black Lives Matter.

According to Zein Murib, an assistant professor of political science at Fordham University, civil rights leaders had a specific policy goal – ending legal segregation – and had specific leaders who mobilized to get it done. The Black Lives Matter movement is different. “The goals, rather than being targeted towards specific laws, are ones that bubble up from the grassroots level,” Murib said. “There’s not a formal policy of police brutality, per se, but the existence of the police authorizes police brutality. I think that’s why we see a much more diffuse movement.”

But what’s happening in New York right now would better be described as lower-case “black lives matter” protests.

On June 1, community members in Astoria, Queens informally organized a vigil

for George Floyd. It featured no set list of speakers, and no activist or community group was involved in its planning. And on May 30, simultaneous events were planned across four boroughs, organized by a handful of progressive and left-wing groups including the People’s Power Assemblies, the Party for Socialism and Liberation, Flatbush for Equality in Brooklyn and Cuir Kitchen Brigade in Queens.

Not every organizer has the same goals for their events. James Johnson, a Southeast Queens community activist and founder of the group Opportunities for Southeast Queens Millennials, organized a rally in Hollis on June 3 expressly for young members of the neighborhood to be heard and to listen to others on the issue

STEVE SANCHEZ PHOTOS/SHUTTERSTOCK

HEN A NEW YORKER steps outside these days, there’s a good chance a rally, vigil or march against systemic racism and police brutality is happening nearby. New York City has seen daily and nightly protests in the aftermath of the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, especially in some predominantly black and Latino neighborhoods and in much of lower Manhattan and neighborhoods near Downtown Brooklyn.

That might lead one to wonder who is organizing these events, bringing hundreds or even thousands of New Yorkers into the streets and marching across bridges all around the city simultaneously. It’s an impressive feat, especially for a movement with no high-profile individual leader.

But there is no one person, or even any one group, responsible. Welcome to a new era in activism, in which diffuse social networks can organize and absorb information about when and where to show up through osmosis.

Activist organizations, community members and neighborhood groups from across the five boroughs have been loosely coordinating or independently organizing action for the last week. In the past week, only one protest – a June 2 rally and march in Bryant Park – seems to have been officially organized by Black Lives Matter of Greater New York, the local chapter of the national group.

While most, if not all, of the other actions are part of the same overarching movement, their organizers are not specifically related to the official Black Lives Matter group.

For example, a rally at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn on May 29, the second day of action, was organized by an artist-led community group called the Freedom Arts Movement.

The decentralization is at least partially by design. The Black Lives Matter movement was founded in 2013 as a leaderless grassroots movement. That contrasts with historical movements that often featured charismatic leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. and groups like his Southern Christian Leadership Conference during the Civil Rights era.

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of racism and police brutality. “You have some other communities that are having outsiders influence what is going on as far as what a protest (looks) like,” Johnson told City & State before the event began. “Every individual that’s going to be here today are going to be from the community.”

Johnson was adamant his rally would be peaceful, to “change the narrative.” Clashes with police, vandalism and looting like have been seen in parts of Brooklyn remain a concern, particularly in black communities like Hollis that are most affected by the very issues being protested. Flyers for the May 29 rally in front of the Barclays Center told protesters “prepare to escalate” – and

City & State New York

the protest did escalate, with a burning police car and clashes with officers.

In contrast, “We’ll police our own selves,” Johnson said. Police arrived 30 minutes before the start of the rally nonetheless. It concluded without incident.

Although Johnson’s rally was focused on his community and its specific needs, that’s not to say that none of these groups are coordinating with each other. Timothy Hunter, a senior member with the activist group Strategy for Black Lives, which organized a June 2 rally at Foley Square in Manhattan, said that his group communicates with others to maximize the impact of protests.

“Other groups also meet up at these organizing events and connect with each other,” Hunter said. “There’s a lot of groups, and I’m sure some people don’t know the names of all of them,” he said, but if an event is from a trusted group, others will promote it.

While critics may say a lack of singular leadership could muddy the messaging around specific goals, a democratization in the power structure also makes a movement harder to delegitimize or eradicate while broadening a base of support. New York is seeing that now as broad coalitions of groups take advantage of the moment to get messages to those in power. “Different people are protesting for different things, and they’re forming allyships,” Fordham political science professor Christina Greer said. “We’re all coming together because we’re feeling like the state has failed us.” That unity helps strengthen demands for the broad, structural change protesters seek from those in power. “No, there’s no direct leadership.

No, there’s no specific message. But I think at a certain point in time, the key demands will be distilled to the top,” Greer said.

Thanks to social media, where much of organizing happens, these often disparate groups and the rallies they organize are reaching wider audiences than before, while helping create a sense of unity between related, but often unconnected, action across the five boroughs. Groups create events on Facebook and share information on Twitter and Instagram. “Social media lowers the costs for participation,” Murib said. “It makes it easier to learn about a protest that’s happening.”

One Instagram page in particular, @justiceforgeorgefloydnyc, has become a community posting board for events throughout the greater metropolitan area. With more than 120,000 followers, the anonymous

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page offers a central point of entry into this decentralized conglomeration of protests.

And in the process, it often divorces any particular rally from its original organizer.

Posts with dates and times of protests – that also get shared by other users and can be found in neighborhood subreddits – often don’t include information on the people behind them, only adding to the decentralized nature of the protest movement.

The Instagram account itself holds a degree of sway. The page initially featured a June 2 protest to take place in Fort Totten Park in Queens. It later posted that the organizer had canceled the event due to concerns over police presence. But the message had already gotten out, and according to QNS, about 50 to 60 people still showed up and marched through Bayside.

At the same time, there is a degree of spontaneity to some of the protests, particularly those in the evening, that are somewhat reminiscent of the Stonewall Uprising for gay rights in 1969. Those protests were not explicitly planned in advance, but for days after the initial police raid, members of the LGBTQ community showed up in Greenwich Village to express their anger and frustration with the status quo. Today, the ongoing protests in Brooklyn that begin at the Barclays Center are similar. Even when no organization has planned a rally or march, protesters arrive about the same time each day and march through Downtown Brooklyn.

And once protesters begin marching, organized rallies become much more fluid.

“Social media sustains protests,” Murib said. “I was following very closely some people who were tweeting what was effectively a police scanner – the police are moving this way, so the movement needs to go this way.”

In New York’s recent history, the longest sustained protest that comes to mind is Occupy Wall Street in 2011, but what’s happening today is arguably different. In 2011, demonstrators stayed in one spot in Lower Manhattan for weeks, whereas in the past week, events have been happening every day all over the city. And years of continued injustice and inaction by those in power combined with a pandemic that has disproportionately affected communities of color has created an unprecedented environment for protest. “I don’t see this letting up until justice is served,” Hunter said. “People are tired of justice not being served.”

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After returning from Albany, state Sen. Zellnor Myrie was pepper-sprayed during a protest.

June 8, 2020

June 8, 2020

City & State New York

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ALBANY’S ANSWER Criminal justice returns as the defining political issue in New York.

by Z A C H W I L L I A M S

NY SENATE MEDIA SERVICES

T

HE STATE LEGISLATIVE agenda has been a roller coaster ride over the past 18 months. Last year belonged to the newly empowered progressive left, which won sweeping reforms protecting tenants, immigrants, victims of abuse and assault and criminal defendants. In early 2020, the political initiative shifted to the political center, with efforts to scale back cash bail reforms dominating state budget discussions. Then the coronavirus pandemic struck, and nonemergency policy issues were put on the back burner.

In early April, Gov. Andrew Cuomo and centrist Democrats ultimately teamed up to pass a partial rollback of bail reform in the state budget. COVID-19 might have become the overriding issue for the next two months, but even as the public health and economic toll mounted, issues linking public health, systemic racism and the criminal justice system were always bubbling below the surface.

“We have more black people dying,” said Assemblywoman Rodneyse Bichotte, whose Brooklyn district has been the center of the public health crisis and recent protests. “We have more black people losing their businesses. We have more black people unemployed.” Another turning point came on May 25, when George Floyd died at the hands of Minneapolis police officers – and a confrontation between a white woman and black birdwatcher went viral. “Then boom!” said Bichotte – and criminal justice reform once again became the focus in state politics.

This latest disruption in the political landscape is now giving state lawmakers an opportunity to pass a package of longsought police reforms while also taking action on several political lessons learned during the pandemic.

Cuomo’s consolidation of power early on in the pandemic left state lawmakers mostly

on the political sidelines until the middle of May, when Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and state Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins announced – after drawing criticism from good government groups for their inaction – that state lawmakers would return to their normal work of passing bills and holding hearings.

This time around, the circumstances are much more advantageous to lawmakers.

The governor has taken a wait-and-see approach to the protests, ceding some ground to lawmakers on addressing police reform.

That is leaving an opening for a state Legislature led by two black Democratic leaders.

The pepper-spraying by NYPD officers of state Sen. Zellnor Myrie and Assemblywoman Diana Richardson – two black lawmakers who introduced legislation earlier this year to change the NYPD disci-

Brian Benjamin presided over a mostly remote state Senate as lawmakers resumed session.

plinary process – at a Brooklyn protest has galvanized support for their efforts.

“I’m hoping that my experience shows people that this isn’t some sort of made up grievance,” Myrie told City & State in an interview. “This isn’t a fake agitation. This is a deep-seated frustration with the system that has ignored us for way too long.”

While the 2019 debate focused on the pretrial system through changes to bail and discovery laws, June 2020 has unexpectedly put Albany on the cusp of addressing police reform. “It’s unfortunate that it (took) the tragic murder of George Floyd for this to happen,” state Senate Codes Committee Chairman Jamaal Bailey said. “But I am heartened by the silver lining in such a dark cloud that people are starting to wake up and see that we need to change things.”

Legislative leaders have said that something is going to pass the second week of June. The top issue on the legislative agenda is a proposal to repeal a state law known as 50-a that allows New York City to shield police disciplinary records from public disclosure, a change that police unions have blocked for years through a combination of political donations and fiery rhetoric. They are hardly any more supportive on other bills that are likely to pass the state Legislature in the coming week that require courts to collect more data, a ban on racial profiling and codifying into state law the office of a special prosecutor to handle misconduct investigations.

A Democratic source told the Daily News on June 4 that the legislative package would include 50-a repeal and codification of the state attorney general’s role as a special prosecutor in cases in which a police officer kills someone, and that a ban on racial or ethnic profiling and a chokehold ban were also under consideration.

The measures were among around a dozen proposals under discussion as state lawmakers get ready to reconvene in early

26 CityAndStateNY.com

June. While there is broad support for many of them, the size of the legislative package is still a matter of debate. “We need to consider as many as we can,” said state Sen. Robert Jackson, who chaired a May hearing on how COVID-19 has disproportionately affected minority communities. Assembly Codes Committee Chairman Joe Lentol is urging a more constrained approach that would include the repeal of 50-a and legislation he is proposing to require more data collection by courts. “It might even be a mistake to

PBA President Pat Lynch is still lambasting New York City lawmakers for their purportedly “cop-hating” agenda for threatening the department with budget cuts. “The legislators pushing these measures aren’t concerned about creating sound policy, just exploiting the politics of the moment,” Lynch said in a statement. Other union leaders are saying they oppose the repeal of 50-a, at least as currently proposed. “(We) understand that change is inevitable,” Thomas Mungeer, president of the New

State Senate Deputy Majority Leader Michael Gianaris is one of several lawmakers who will no longer take donations from police unions.

York State Troopers Police Benevolent Association. “That being said, we have always prided ourselves on being open-minded and we are agreeable to having conversations to discuss potential modifications.” This is a far cry for just a week or two ago, when the very idea of passing police reform appeared unimaginable given the public focus on the coronavirus pandemic.

Cuomo appears to be eager to go along with some proposed reforms. Days after protests erupted in the state, he said he would sign a bill to allow the disclosure of disciplinary records. A four-pronged approach offered by the governor on Friday overlaps with proposals from lawmakers, including a ban on chokeholds and making false 911 calls involving race a hate crime.

“He sat on the sidelines and for some reason now tries to act like it is his agenda,” Mike Murphy, a spokesman for Stewart-Cousins, responded via Twitter. “He has no involvement in any of this,” he later added.

While the governor continues to back po-

try and pass everything we ought to pass at once,” Lentol added. Another key factor is likely to be the level of opposition that materializes against the reform efforts.

Like Cuomo sensing the political weakness of his own political opponents in budget negotiations, state lawmakers are now taking advantage of the sudden weakness of the traditionally all-powerful police unions. Groups including the New York City Police Benevolent Association played a big role in fueling controversy over bail reform earlier in the year, especially through fiery statements by leaders in the news media. That has now changed as public opinion gets behind reform efforts and past supporters, including state Senate Deputy Majority Leader Michael Gianaris, cut their financial ties to police unions.

lice – saying 99.9% of them are not a problem – the desire to get something done appears to be his top priority, as it has been before on various issues during his tenure. So he may be more open than usual to lawmakers’ various proposals, despite some differences on the details. “We have to review the package,” Cuomo spokesman Rich Azzopardi told City & State when asked about the lawmakers’ proposals. Just how much lawmakers can pass will only become known once legislative leaders announce the actual bills, which had not happened by publication time.

Another lesson lawmakers are recognizing is the need to act on their convictions. It is a simple idea, but hard to achieve at times.

The early March vote on expanding the governor’s emergency powers illustrates the prioritization of pragmatic politics over their idealist notions of the relative powers of the executive and legislative branches of government. The state budget approved in early April, which included the revisions to bail reform, is another example of state lawmakers choosing between getting things done and sticking to their principles.

Two months after those compromise measures, state lawmakers have a chance to advance bills years in the making. On paper, there were enough votes to pass them months, if not years, ago.

The sudden political shift brought on by recent protests against police brutality and institutional racism now gives them a chance to act. The state Legislature might even regain some of the glow it had last year when the newly elected Democratic majorities in each chamber showed what they could do when they rally around one cause or another.

That happened with rent reform and legislation allowing undocumented people to obtain driver’s licenses. It happened with the package of bills last year that eliminated cash bail in many cases and sped up the trials process. That period of reform waned by the time the 2020 legislative session began, but now criminal justice issues are back on the legislative calendar as the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic subsides.

With the political winds once again at their backs, the unexpected unrest is giving Democratic state lawmakers a fresh chance to prove that they can confront the biggest issues facing the state by translating rhetoric into action. “Don’t just talk about it, don’t just tweet about it,” said the Rev. Kevin McCall, a longtime Christian minister and civil rights leader in Brooklyn. “But show us with the gavel.”

■

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June 8, 2020

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CityAndStateNY.com / PUBLIC and LEGAL NOTICES

June 8, 2020

DCJB, LLC . Art. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 5/4/2020. Office: Richmond County. SSNY designated as agent of the LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail copy of process to the LLC, 54 West Terrace Staten Island, NY 10312. Purpose: Any lawful purpose.

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legalnotices@cityandstateny.com Notice of Formation of JB Capstone Enterprises, LLC, filed with SSNY on 2/4/14. Office: NY County. SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: 12 East 37th St, 2nd Floor, NY, NY 10016. Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

Notice of Formation of 5hndred Autohaus, LLC filed with SSNY on March 3, 2020. Office: NY County. SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: 615 Manor rd, Staten Island, NY. Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

Notice of Formation of Bre Travel, LLC filed with SSNY on March 25, 2020. Office: Kings County. Sydney Baker designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: 655 Macon Street, Brooklyn, New York, 11233. Purpose: any lawful act or activity NOTICE IS HEREBY given that a license number #TBA for a beer and wine has been applied for by Antwerp J LLC D/B/A/ MOJO DESSERTS, to sell beer and wine at retail in a coffee and dessert shop for on premises consumption under the Alcoholic Beverage Control law at 177 E. 100th St., New York, NY 10029, New York County.

App. for Auth. (LLC) Solid & Striped LLC. App. for Auth. filed w/ the Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 4/1/20. LLC formed in DE on 6/7/12. Office Location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to: c/o The LLC, 529 W. 20th St., #7E, NY, NY 10011, registered agent upon whom process may be served. Purpose: All lawful purposes.

Notice of Formation of AR Practice Management Firm, LLC filed with SSNY on March 5, 2020. Office: NY Dutchess County. SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: 59 Hudson Heights Drive, Poughkeepsie, NY 12601.

Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

Notice of Qualification of ReVased, LLC Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 01/23/20. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Maryland (MD) on 10/16/18. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to c/o ReVased, LLC, 1829 Reisterstown Road, #425, Baltimore, MD 21208.

Cert. of Form. filed with Director of State of MD Dept of Assessments and Taxation, 301 West Preston Street, Baltimore, MD 21201. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

NOTICE OF FORMATION of YL Partners LLC. Arts of Org filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 1/10/20. Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent upon whom process may be served and shall mail a copy of process against LLC to the LLC, 145 East 48th Street, # 29B, New York, NY 10017. Purpose: any lawful act.

Notice of Formation of Rise N’ Shine Commercial Cleaning, LLC filed with SSNY on April 20, 2020. Office: Westchester County. SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served: Jordane Johnson. SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: 160 Concord Avenue, White Plains, NY 10606.

Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

NOTICE OF FORMATION of limited liability company (LLC). Name: MO WELLNESS FOUNDATION, LLC. Articles of Organization filed with Secretary of State of New York (SSNY) on 04/01/2020. Office location: Bronx County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail copy of process to: MAURICE HURD 3410 DE REIMER AVE APT 7J BRONX, NY 10475. Purpose: any lawful purpose.

DCJB, LLC . Art. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 5/4/2020. Office: Richmond County. SSNY designated as agent of the LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail copy of process to the LLC, 54 West Terrace Staten Island, NY 10312. Purpose: Any lawful purpose.

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Design Lady LLC. Art. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 04/07/2020. Office: Bronx County.

SSNY designated as agent of the LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail a copy of process to the LLC, 7014 13th avenue suite 202 Brooklyn, NY 11228. Purpose: Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of Saturday Cartoons LLC filed with SSNY on 1/17/20. Office: NY County. SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: 694 Metropolitan Ave,#201 Brooklyn, NY 11211. Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

ZNK, LLC Art. of Org filed with the SSNY on 4/17/20.

Office: New York County. SSNY designated as agent of the LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail copy of process to the LLC, 47 E 30th St., Apt. 5, New York, NY 10016. Purpose: Any lawful purpose.

Notice of formation of MikeGeez Fitness Boutique, LLC. Filed with SSNY Richmond County on 1/20/2020. SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it ay be served.

SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: 4131 Hylan Blvd, SI, NY 10308.

Purpose: Any lawful act or activity.

Design Lady LLC. Art. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 04/07/2020. Office: Bronx County. SSNY designated as agent of the LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail a copy of process to the LLC, 7014 13th avenue suite 202 Brooklyn, NY 11228.

Purpose: Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of Rise N’ Shine Commercial Cleaning, LLC filed with SSNY on April 20, 2020. Office: Westchester County. SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served: Jordane Johnson. SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: 160 Concord Avenue, White Plains, NY 10606.

Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY NOTICE OF FORMATION of WIRED FOUNDATIONS LLC. Arts. Of Org. filed with Sec. of State of NY (SSNY) on 4/22/2020.

Office Location: Westchester County.

SSNY designated as agent of the LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to: WIRED FOUNDATIONS, LLC P.O. Box 8350, Pelham, NY 10803. Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

Notice of Formation of Peach Ink LLC filed with SSNY on February 18, 2020. Office: Westchester County. SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: 50 Deertree Lane, Briarcliff Manor, NY 10510. Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

Notice of formation of JJS 220, LLC, a domestic LLC. Arts. of Org. filed with SSNY on 5/11/20.

Office location: Westchester County. SSNY has been designated as agent upon whom process against the LLC may be served and the SSNY shall mail a copy of any process to: The LLC, 1 Stoneleigh Plaza, Bronxville, New York 10708.

Purpose: Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of SHLUF LLC. Arts. of Org. filed with NY Dept. of State on 5/5/20. Office location: NY County.

Sec. of State designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to: 888 7th Ave., 4th Fl., NY, NY 10106, principal business address. Purpose: all lawful purposes.

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Notice of Formation of Malone Services, LLC dba Purely Clean Services filed with SSNY on May 15, 2020. Office: NY County. SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: 31 Parcot Ave. New Rochelle, NY. Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

Notice of Formation of Trade Signal’s, LLC. Arts of Org filed with Sec. of State of NY on 5/20/20. Office Location: Richmond County. SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served and mail process to: c/o the LLC, 4218 Amboy Rd. SI, NY 10308. Purpose: any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of Yumin 11106, LLC filed with SSNY on March 11, 2020. Office: Kings County, NY. SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail a copy of process to LLC: 2042 W 8th St Brooklyn, NY, 11223. Purpose: any lawful act or activity Notice of Formation of Too High Records, LLC filed with SSNY on March 26, 2020. Office: NY County. SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: 24 Monument Walk, Apt 2B, Brooklyn, NY 11205. Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

Notice of qualification of Kabia & Santos LLP for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 05/08/20. Office location: NY County. LLP formed in New Jersey (NJ) on 01/05/20. SSNY designated as agent of LLP upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to c/o Regus, 77 Water St., 7th and 8th Fl, New York, NY 10005. NJ addr. of LLP: c/o Regus, 221 River St, 9th Fl, Hoboken, NJ 07030. Cert. of Form. filed with Secy. of State of the State of NJ, Dpt. of Treasury, Div. of Revenue and Enterprise Services., P.O. Box 628, Trenton, NJ 08625-0628.

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June 8, 2020

Notice of Formation of Prime Innovations Professional Development, LLC with SSNY on 05/04/2020.

Office location: Bronx County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail copy of process to: ANNE S. BURGUNDER 555 KAPPOCK ST 1T BRONX, NY 10463. Purpose: any lawful act of activity.

Notice of Formation of Limited Liability Company (LLC) Name: 159 KANE ST., LLC. Articles of Organization filed with Secretary of State of New York (SSNY) on April 27, 2020.

Office Location: Kings County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to: 175 Van Dyke Street, Brooklyn, New York 11231. Purpose: to engage in any and all business for which LLCs may be formed under the New York LLC law.

Exploring The Wonder Years LLC. Filed with SSNY on 05/26/20. Office: BX County. SSNY designated as agent for process & shall mail copy to LLC: 1368 Metropolitan Ave #8G, BX, NY 10462. Purpose: any lawful act.

Notice of Formation of Angelic Tresses By Chelly LLC filed with SSNY on April 28, 2020.

Office: Kings County.

SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: 200 E39th Street 2FL., Brooklyn NY 11203. Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

Notice of Formation of SAFDEYE CITADEL PARTNERS LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 05/28/20. Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to Corporation Service Co., 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543.

Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice of Qualification of Sandys Consulting and Coaching LLC. LLC appl for auth filed with Secy of State (SSNY) on 1/29/2020.

Office Location: NY County. LLC formed in New Jersey on 7/5/2019. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to Jay Sandys, 15 Plymouth Ave Maplewood, NJ 07040 NJ address for LLC 15 Plymouth Avenue Maplewood NJ 07040. Purpose: any lawful activity NOTICE OF STATUTORY RECEIVERSHIP - To All Parties claiming to be creditors or having an interest in DPC New York, Inc., D.P. Consulting Corp. and DP Construction Corp. (collectively, the “DPC Parties”), take notice: 1.

Scott J. Freedman, Esq. was appointed Statutory Receiver for each of the DPC Parties by the 4/24/20 Order Appointing Statutory Receiver Pursuant to N.J.S.A. 14A:14-Et Seq. entered by the Superior Court of NJ, Law Div., Middlesex County at Docket No. MID-L-5741-19 in the matter captioned Provident Bank v. DPC New York, Inc., et al.; 2.

Pursuant to the 5/29/20 Court Order for Statutory Receiver Compliance With N.J.S.A. 14A:14-15, all creditors and other parties in interest of any of the DPC Parties shall present written proof of their claims, under oath, on or before 12/11/20, to Scott J. Freedman, Esq., Statutory Receiver for DPC Parties, Dilworth Paxson LLP, 457 Haddonfield Rd., #700, Cherry Hill, NJ 08002; and 3. Any creditor who does not file its claim as provided in this Notice, and all those claiming through or under that creditor, shall be forever barred from suing on such claim or otherwise realizing upon or enforcing it, except as otherwise provided in N.J.S. A .14A:-14-15(2)(a) or (b).

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PUBLIC NOTICE Cellco Partnership and its controlled affiliates doing business as Verizon Wireless (Verizon Wireless) proposes to collocate wireless communications antennas at a top height of 54 feet on a 48-foot building at the approx. vicinity of 24-64 28th Street, Astoria, Queens County, NY 11102. Public comments regarding potential effects from this site on historic properties may be submitted within 30 days from the date of this publication to: Trileaf Corp, Abigail Moore-Lee, a.moore@trileaf.com, 1395 S. Marietta Pkwy, Building 400, Suite 209, Marietta, GA 30067; 678653-8673 ext. 664.

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN THAT A LICENSE, SERIAL # 1326347 FOR LIQUOR, WINE, & BEER HAS BEEN APPLIED FOR BY THE UNDERSIGNED TO SELL LIQUOR, WINE, & BEER AT RETAIL UNDER THE ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGE CONTROL LAW AT 549 GREENWICH ST. NY, NY 10013 NY COUNTY, FOR ON PREMISE CONSUMPTION. PETNO RESTAURANT INC

Public Notice of Registered Assumed Name Westchester, New York Please be advised that Ramona Sanchez Mendez, living at 43 Garfield St, Yonkers, New York [10701] is the Nameholder changing Ramona Sanchez Mendez’s name to Sandra Maria Chalas, in place of this present name. Date Filed 09/06/2019.

Notice of Formation of Halo Architecture PLLC filed with SSNY on 02/04/2020. Office: Richmond County. SSNY designated agent upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to address:2744 Hylan Blvd Suite #155 Staten Island, NY 10306. Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

Notice of Formation of Numeracy I, LLC filed with SSNY on May 5, 2020. Office: NY County.

SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: 12 E 97th St., 3L, New York, NY. 10029. Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

Matine Group, LLC filed with SSNY on February 21, 2020. Office: Richmond County. SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: 8 Melba Street, Staten Island, NY 10314. Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

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30 CityAndStateNY.com

June 8, 2020

CITY & STATE NEW YORK MANAGEMENT & PUBLISHING CEO Steve Farbman, President & Publisher Tom Allon tallon@cityandstateny.com, Comptroller David Pirozzi, Business & Operations Manager Patrea Patterson, Administrative Assistant Lauren Mauro

Who was up and who was down last week

CREATIVE Art Director Andrew Horton, Senior Graphic Designer Alex Law, Graphic Designer Aaron Aniton

LOSERS

DIGITAL Project Manager Michael Filippi, Digital Content Manager Amanda Luz Henning Santiago, Digital Marketing Strategist Caitlin Dorman, Web/Email Strategist Isabel Beebe

BILL DE BLASIO The cops who turned their backs on him in 2014 are still mad. And now the police reform advocates have turned their backs on him too.

Left or right, pro-police or anti-police, nobody is happy with how de Blasio’s NYPD has responded to the protests. That radical leftist who supported the Sandinistas in Nicaragua? The public advocate who campaigned against the evils of stop-and-frisk? That guy probably would have called for this mayor to resign.

THE BEST OF THE REST

THE REST OF THE WORST

RUBÉN DÍAZ SR.

ELIOT ENGEL

The bluest House district in America might go to an anti-gay conservative Democrat if new polling is to be believed.

This is fresh evidence that the cowboyhatted councilman has taken the reins.

ZELLNOR MYRIE & DIANA RICHARDSON

It can be hard to feel like a winner after getting pepper-sprayed, but at least they can get some legislative revenge. Unlike other protesters, Myrie and Richardson can use their positions to directly vote for reforms that would make those very police more accountable for their actions.

A hot mic is one hell of a truth serum. At a news conference on police brutality protests, the congressman asked for a turn to speak, saying, “If I didn’t have a primary, I wouldn’t care.”

COLINFORD MATTIS

This corporate lawyer and Brooklyn community board member is now facing federal charges for his part in setting an NYPD van ablaze with a molotov cocktail.

Sure, discussions at community board meetings can get heated, but this is our first time hearing about a board member using literal fire to air a grievance.

WINNERS & LOSERS is published every Friday morning in City & State’s First Read email.

Sign up for the email, cast your vote and see who won at cityandstateny.com.

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Vol. 9 Issue 22 June 8, 2020

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June 1, 2020

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CITY & STATE NEW YORK (ISSN 2474-4107) is published weekly, 48 times a year except for the four weeks containing New Year’s Day, July 4th, Thanksgiving and Christmas by City & State NY, LLC, 61 Broadway, Suite 1315, New York, NY 10006-2763. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY and at additional mailing offices.

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BOWMAN FOR CONGRESS; RBLFMR/SHUTTERSTOCK

JAMAAL BOWMAN It’s hard to imagine a congressional candidate pulling off an AOClike victory amid a pandemic – but if anyone’s got a chance, it’s Jamaal Bowman. First, a fellow progressive challenger dropped out and threw his support behind Bowman. Then incumbent Rep. Eliot Engel was heard saying at a press conference, “If I didn’t have a primary, I wouldn’t care.”

The gaffe fueled more than $107,000 in contributions to Bowman’s campaign that same day. The cherry on top? An endorsement from AOC herself.

OUR PICK

OUR PICK

WINNERS

First came the deadly coronavirus outbreak. Then came the death of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis police, spurring widespread outrage and protests.

What’s next? Some kind of constitutional crisis during the upcoming elections?

Flooding of New York City wrought by climate change? Frogs falling from the sky?

Given all the bleak headlines these days, we hope our Winners & Losers list elicits a few smiles.

EDITORIAL editor@cityandstateny.com Editor-in-Chief Jon Lentz jlentz@cityandstateny.com, Managing Editor Ryan Somers, Senior Editor Ben Adler badler@cityandstateny.com, Special Projects Editor Alice Popovici, Deputy Editor Eric Holmberg, Senior Reporter Jeff Coltin jcoltin@cityandstateny.com, Staff Reporter Zach Williams zwilliams@cityandstateny.com, Staff Reporter Rebecca C. Lewis rlewis@cityandstateny.com, Tech & Policy Reporter Annie McDonough amcdonough@ cityandstateny.com, Staff Reporter Kay Dervishi, Associate Copy Editor Holly Pretsky

THE FUTURE OF TRANSPORTATION IN NEW YORK POST COVID-19 JUNE 16, 2020 - 2:00-3:00PM EST As a result of COVID 19 and the enforcement of work from home policies for all non-essential businesses, ridership has plummeted across New York’s mass transit systems as officials scramble to keep service running. Additionally, in early May, NYC opened up 40 miles of streets citywide.When we return to work, what will public transportation and our streets look like?With the increased homeless population on thesubways, how can we get to work timely and safely and put our children back on the subways to get to school safely?

PA N E LI STS I N C LU D E

COREY JOHNSON New York City Council Speaker

POLLY TROTTENBERG Commissioner, New York City Department of Transportation

PHILLIP ENG President, Long Island Railroad

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WEDNESDAY, JUNE 24TH–THURSDAY, JUNE 25TH 1:30PM-4:00PM In what would have been our 6th Annual Nonprofit OpCon, we have adjusted to the world as it is with COVID-19, and are pleased to bring you the first-ever VIRTUAL NONPROFIT OPCON. Over the course of two days, we will bring you the same level of expertise and content focusing on streamlining processes and operations for nonprofits in New York. It’s a new day in the nonprofit industry; join us as we explore these insights and strategies!

PANELS INCLUDE COVID-19 AND THE POTENTIAL ACCOUNTING AND FINANCIAL IMPACTS ON NONPROFITS HOW NONPROFIT LEADERSHIP AND BOARD MEMBERS CAN RESPOND TO COVID-19 THE INTERSECTION OF TECHNOLOGY AND OFFICE SPACE IN A POST COVID-19 ERA NONPROFIT EFFICIENCY: MANAGING RISK, OVERHEAD AND FAILURE AMID COVID-19 RSVP at NYNMedia.com/Events .For more information on programming and sponsorship opportunities, please contact Lissa Blake at lblake@cityandstateny.com

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